Monday 8 July 2013 09.52 EDT
First published on Monday 8 July 2013 09.52 EDT

Ahead of the release of Nine Inch Nails' new album Hesitation Marks this September, we asked readers to help compile a playlist of ten tracks for people who have never listened to the band before. Here's what they came up with – listen via the YouTube playlist, or click each song title to view the individual track.

The opening track on debut album Pretty Hate Machine is a favourite in rock clubs the world over. WarHoleRadTimes loves the song's "skyscraper-sized angst, pulsing electro rhythms, and eardrum shattering noise."

From second album The Downward Spiral, March of the Pigs brings together industrial rock influences and whimsical jazz piano. Frightened Rabbit say it encapsulates "both sides of NIN in one, brutal and tender."

Originally feature on the soundtrack to David Lynch's Lost Highway, The Perfect Drug saw Reznor push the drum and bass genre to its limits – it also has one of the coolest music videos of the 90s. n_mcguinness says it "represents the length and breadth of NIN."

It's a track that crackles and broods before bursting out into one of the biggest rock choruses ever written – it's a song that needs to be played loud. Eddasaurus says it's "accessible, but unconventional."

Many people think that this song was written by Johnny Cash – many people are wrong. Hurt shows Reznor's song-writing at its peak. For Maarten Schermer, "Hurt has a great balance between harshness and beauty, something it seems Reznor has consistently strived for. And it's one hell of a song."